Don’t Waste Your Apprenticeship

If you’re reading this you most likely fall in one of two camps – (A) you’re either just about to start or have just begun a Command Course or (B) you’re a current F/O learning your craft and preparing for your turn at some later date. If you’re in Camp A, there’s not too much point in reading any further (just spend your time more productively and learn an aircraft system or a new Command skill). If, however, you are a Camp B type, then pay attention.

Your Company might give you the rank of F/O, but in reality you are an Apprentice Captain.

DO NOT waste your apprenticeship.

You should be preparing for your Command Course and learning and refining your individual Command skills. If you’ve got any sense you will have started to do this soon after you became an F/O. If not then start right now.

An easy way to do this is to learn from your current Captains on your current flights. Take control of your own Self Directed Learning – if YOU don’t do it, it’s unlikely anybody else will.

If you fly with 10 different Captains in a month and invest 15 minutes asking them questions and getting them to teach you something, then you’ve invested 150 minutes of valuable, hard to get, practical, experiential learning. And this is usually stuff that you will never find written in a book. If you learn just one new item, technique, method or piece of knowledge from each of them, then you are 10 items richer in your knowledge "bank" than a month before.

Imagine how much you could learn if you did this on every sector you fly for a year; two years; three years.

It’s like compound interest and you will reap the dividends when you actually commence your Command Course. You will be more knowledgeable, more confident, more decisive and a better Captain.

Don’t fall into the trap of just turning up for work and just only doing your job – and no more. Don’t waste your apprenticeship.

Now some Captains might be complete tossers and tell you point blank that they’re not Training Captains, so don’t bother them with this learning stuff! Well, you can learn something from these negative Captains (probably how NOT to be a good Captain!)

Your learning doesn’t have to be active, that is the Captain “formally” teaching you, discussing techniques or transferring knowledge. It can also be passive (learning by osmosis) by observing what your Captains do, how they handle people or deal with abnormalities or emergencies. You can then incorporate the good and reject the bad into your own individual Command “toolbox”. Watch, observe and learn from your current Captains.

Keeping a “Command Journal” can be handy and helpful for you to note how various Captains express their Command “Style”. You might notice common themes or methods that the majority of Captains use to cope with the various situations that are presented to them. List new items, techniques or knowledge so that you can discuss new, novel or contentious issues with other, different Captains.

Don’t waste your apprenticeship – learn from your current Captains.

The 2 Rules

And don't forget it!

Your Comfort, Learning & Anxiety Zones

You will be challenged, put under stress, be “forced” to study and as a result, learn, throughout your Command Training.

In this article we’ll look at some different ”Zones” for learning that you can either remain in or shift between as the situation dictates. To get the most out of your training you should be moving between two of these Zones all through your training.

The focus of this discussion will be the “learning” environment. You may escalate into the high stress Zone as a result of “operational” pressures that you have to cope with. If so, you will have to use your Command and Leadership skills to successfully resolve the situation.

Ideally your Trainer will facilitate this moving between Zones to ensure that you get the absolute maximum value out of the training he provides you. Unfortunately not all Trainers are created equal and some will be completely unaware of these different Zones. Hence this article. If you have a bit of an idea of what these Zones represent and what their purpose and advantages and disadvantages are, then you can try and manoeuvre yourself in and out of the Zones to increase the training value you gain.

The 3 “Zones”

There are three possible “Zones” that you can be operating in. These are (in increasing order of difficulty and stress): your COMFORT Zone, your LEARNING Zone or your ANXIETY Zone.

The characteristics of these different Zones are listed in the following table;

COMFORT ZONE	LEARNING ZONE
Normal	Unknown
Old	New
Constant	Transitional
Solid foundation	Building
Safe	Entails risk and mistakes
Low Stress	Moderate stress
Security	Temporary loss of security
“Constricting” habits	Requires change
Conformist	Non conformist
“Past” successes	“Future” successes
May be below your potential	Unused or un-utilised potential
Familiar	Transformational
Stagnation and mediocrity	New skills
Comfortable	Fear
Complacency	Challenge

ANXIETY ZONE

No Learning

High Stress

Renders you “immobile”

Blocked Mind

You can move intentionally between the Zones or be placed in situations and environments where you are forced to move between the Zones. A good Trainer will intentionally be moving you back and forth between the Comfort and Learning Zones and avoiding the Anxiety Zone.

The Zones are fluid and flexible and can expand and contract depending on your mood, emotions, stress, the learning environment and the current situation. They depend very much on the individual person – one person’s Zone may be small and inflexible and another’s may be large and pliable.

You can progress from one Zone to another and back again depending on the situation and whether or not you are prepared to step outside of your Comfort Zone. Your attitude towards learning influences heavily your movement between the Comfort and Learning Zones.

Are you prepared to take a chance, risk possible failure and ultimately learn?
Anxiety Zone

We’ll get this one out of the way first as it has no place in the learning environment (although you may experience it in the operational environment).

If you progress into the Anxiety Zone you will not be learning anything much at all. It is a high stress, “freaked out”, very uncomfortable place for you to be in and you will attempt to do whatever is required to get back into the Learning Zone, or more likely the Comfort Zone, to escape the anxiety and stress associated with it. Humans have pretty good defence mechanisms and you will naturally seek to get out of this Zone as soon as possible.

If you determine that you have ventured into the Anxiety Zone try to move down to one of the other less stressful Zones so that you can begin to start learning again by removing yourself from the situation or environment if possible.

If your Trainer is not aware that you have moved into your Anxiety Zone, then tell him – remember you’re learning very little in this Zone!

Comfort Zone

This is the easy one, which most people like to wallow and live in. It is a result of the sum of all that you have learned and experienced previously. It is what you have previously learned and determined that you are comfortable living with and have settled for.

The space for what you want is being occupied by what you are settling for now.

There are positives and negatives with residing in the Comfort Zone.

The negatives consist of possible stagnation, complacency and mediocrity. You tend to conform to expectations so that you fit in with the crowd. You are unwilling to take a chance or risk as these things entail possible failure, loss of self esteem or adverse peer pressure. You are likely to have very strong “constricting” habits as a result of “past successes” (if it worked before, why bother changing?) You may be operating at a low potential, as you don’t really know what you are capable of and may not be prepared to find out. You tend to think well and truly “within the box”.

The positives consist of this Zone being a foundation, a safe and secure “home base” that you are comfortable with. It is a low stress place and very conducive to taking on board new ideas and thoughts (or in other words incorporating lessons learned). It is a place that you can return effortlessly to, so that you can “rest”, recover and recuperate.

Learning Zone

To learn, you need to expand your horizons outside of your Comfort Zone and into the Learning Zone. Deciding to take the first step can be the hardest part and this depends very much on your own attitude towards learning, risk and failure.

You’re a professional aviator who is on a steep learning curve towards Command. Don’t become the lowest common denominator. And don’t become constrained by conservatism.

I do not know anyone who has succeeded who has not been able to assess and take a risk and then live with the consequence – success or failure. Risk avoidance is a sure way to remain mediocre; being safe does not promote personal growth. Failure or making a mistake is not a bad thing; it's proof you were exploring new ways to do something, and that's better than safe success. We learn from our mistakes, not our successes. (David H. Lyman)

You need to stretch far enough that you achieve worthy goals. If you don’t stretch far enough you will only reach goals of limited and merely slightly increased value.

However, you must ensure that you don’t stretch so far that you end up in the Anxiety Zone. If you project yourself into this Zone you’ll end up learning very little (maybe “I’ll never do that again!”) and almost certain failure will result.

Moving Between The Comfort & Learning Zones

To learn, you need to move (or be “forced” by your Trainer) into the Learning Zone and take in new things, skills, concepts and ideas and then relax and return to your Comfort Zone. In this safe “home base” of your Comfort Zone you can contemplate the new stuff and experiences and decide if you will incorporate it/them into your way of doing your style and business of Command. If you do decide to integrate the new stuff you will have effectively expanded your flexible Comfort Zone.

Congratulations - you've learnt something! And that is what Command Training is all about.

Learning is an almost continual process of moving between your Comfort Zone to your Learning Zone and back again. You need to strike a balance between moving into your Learning and Comfort Zones for effective learning to take place. Being in the Learning Zone can be stressful and you will need to relax back into the Comfort Zone to rest and recover regularly (a bit like physical exercise).

Hopefully your Trainer will facilitate this, but if not you’ll have to do it yourself. If you don’t do it, chances are that no one else will. YOU need to take responsibility for your Self Directed Learning.

Moving into the Learning Zone entails taking risk and the chance of failure. Like everything you do with Command, it needs to be a “balanced” risk, or more correctly a “controlled” risk. What you get out of it if you succeed has to be worth more than what you are prepared to lose if you fail.

This is where a really good Trainer earns his money. He can pose scenarios, get you to accomplish new or different flying or Command skills or train you to think differently – all in a controlled manner to maximise your chances of success, and to definitely ensure that you learn something from the exercise.

Preparation plays a big part in this move into the Learning Zone. The more prepared you are the greater the chance of success. Never under-estimate the power of P⁷.

Some Final Thoughts

How you choose to function in the learning environment of Command Training is entirely up to you and you alone. A lot of it has to do with the skill of your Trainer, but most of it has to do with your personal attitude towards your Command Training. You will continually be stretched outside of your Comfort Zone – get used to it; grasp the learning experience with both hands and hang on tight!

If you want to feel secure
Do what you already know how to do.
But if you want to grow...
Go to the cutting edge of your competence,
which means a temporary loss of security.
So, whenever you don't quite know
What you are doing
Know that you are growing... (David Viscott)

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing...does nothing...has nothing...is nothing.
You may avoid suffering and sorrow, but you simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love...live.
Chained by your certitudes, you are a slave; you have forfeited freedom.
Only a person who risks is free. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Keep A “Command” Journal

I recommend that you keep a Journal for your Command preparation and during your Command Course.

What Is A Journal?

It is simply a note book, notepad, loose sheaf paper in a ring binder – anything that you can jot notes down about anything that you determine is important or interesting about your Command preparation or Command Course

Your thoughts, feelings, emotions, debrief points (both good and bad), questions to ask your Trainer, observations (especially of other Captains, both good and bad), reflections on how you can improve, your Command strengths and weaknesses, notes to yourself or to-do lists.

What’s Its Purpose?

It has the potential to become a powerful learning tool if you are disciplined and diligent enough to regularly complete it and review it

You may be amazed at how much you have improved or learned when you read past entries. You can refresh yourself about difficult or weak areas of your Command or Leadership skills, so that you work on these weak areas. You can remind yourself about the good things that you have done – and increasing your self-confidence and self-esteem is incredibly important when undertaking a Command Course. You may be able to identify situations that you handle well or not so well and as a result target skills that are good or need improving.

Don’t just use it as a diary or a de facto logbook and just enter dry, boring daily details. Use it to not only enter the daily details but also to examine why, how and when you do things and reflections on the situations and environments that you encountered.

Keep a journal as an F/O prior to commencing your Command Course. Note the good and bad skills and traits that other Captains display so that you can either incorporate the good into your Command style or eliminate the bad. Discuss with other Command Trainees the aspects of their upgrade Course that they found easy and that they found difficult (and why, and what they did to improve themselves).

You will get a much better understanding of yourself and of how you will act as the future Commander. You will get a pretty good idea of the skills, traits, values and beliefs that you will bring into the Command Course and know what type of Command style you will likely employ.

Keep a journal while actually on Course and note your reactions to events and situations, your thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is useful to put debrief notes in your journal so that you can reflect on the good and bad things that happened to you and what you’ll do about them. Your memory may not be so reliable, especially if you are doing many sectors in a short period of time. Reviewing your journal regularly can refresh your memory about subjects or be used as a guide for study.

You are responsible for your learning and using a journal is one way to increase the value of lessons presented and learnt as an airline Commander – so that you become the best Captain that you can be.

Emotional Rollercoaster

Not too many articles about Command discuss the emotional aspects of undertaking a Command Course.

This line of though was brought about by a question I asked a Trainee the other day “What do you wish you had known before this Command Course started?” His answer – “I wish someone would have told be about the (emotional) highs and lows I’ve experienced, sometimes on the same day or even the same flight!”

You Are Only Human

You are human and therefore you are primarily an emotional creature. You are not logical and rational, but illogical and emotional – despite what you may think or believe. As pilots and especially as men, we get pretty good at disguising our emotions but they are bubbling away just below the surface none the less.

Be ready and prepared for this emotional rollercoaster of intense highs and deep lows. It will occur to everyone. If they say it doesn’t happen to them, they’re lying!

Embrace, enjoy and revel in the highs. The times when you feel on top of the game, when your Trainer praises you, when you recognise that you’ve done a good job, made a sound decision, displayed strong Command or Leadership skills and feel in control of the entire situation. Store this good emotional feeling in your long term memory bank and savour the exquisite pleasure of a job well done.

Have these highs stored away to buffer the inevitable lows you will also experience.

And sometimes all it may take is one bad landing, a teeth rattler, to kill all the good feeling that you may have built up throughout the flight or previous flights. We really can be our own worst enemy. As pilots we tend to focus almost exclusively on our faults, errors and mistakes and gloss over our triumphs, skilful flying and overall good Command and Leadership.

Be aware that you may eventually sink to deep emotional lows. Be prepared and ready for this. Your attitude towards mistakes and criticism, the training you are receiving and towards your job will determine how low YOU allow yourself to go.

If you have a good, healthy, positive attitude the lows will be minimal and manageable. If you have a bad, unhealthy, negative attitude you can plummet to deep lows – and this may affect your overall performance during the Command Course. Some pilots have been to known to dig a hole for themselves so deep that they have been unable to climb out.

Being able to recall the highs, the good feelings from your memory bank, acts as a buffer against these low feelings. You have got to look after yourself.

Those Closest To You

Your own personal emotional state usually also spills over into your personal life and can affect those closest to you, your significant other, spouse or kids. Whether they want to or not, they are also along for the ride on your emotional rollercoaster.

If you are depressed, moody, terse, irritable, sad, grumpy, angry or pissed off, chances are that they will reflect your negative emotions back at you. And your relationship with them will suffer.

If you are happy, pleasant, contented, smiling and at peace with yourself, they will also reflect these positive emotions back towards you and your relationship will prosper. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out which guy will perform better on a Command Course (or life for that matter).

Don’t under estimate the power of positive support from those closest to you. Treat them good and they’ll treat you good. That will assist you in getting through this Command Course.

Build Yourself Up

You can be your own worst enemy – don’t fall into the common trap of beating yourself up mentally over relatively minor mistakes or errors. You really should be focussing on the good things you do. You should be building yourself up, not tearing yourself down.

Think of it as another “Command” problem that you as the Captain and Leader have to deal with and manage. Be proactive, remember the highs, remind yourself that you are good and don’t let negative things adversely affect you. Don’t keep dwelling on past mistakes. Learn from them and push on forward towards an improved you.

Program days off during your training where you have absolutely nothing to do with your work, job or Training. Re-connect with your spouse, family or friends. Chill out, de-stress, relax, have fun and do something enjoyable. Often that “insurmountable” problem when looked at in the right context will in reality become a “minor” problem.

Recall the emotional highs to act as a buffer for the inevitable emotional lows. Build yourself up, don’t tear yourself down.

Keep your arms inside the car, tighten your safety belt and be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of Command.

Just Say “We”, “Us”, “Our” & “Let’s”

The Better the Team, the Safer the World – Golden Rules of Group Interaction in High Risk Environments: Evidence based suggestions for improving performance (download the PDF version here) by the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation contains 21 Golden Rules to improve team work.

This is one of a series of articles that will explore one of these general rules that is particularly relevant as an Airline Commander and Leader in our specific aviation environment. See the end of this article for links to the other “Specific Rules”.

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Just Say “We”, “Us”, “Our” & “Let’s”. As the Captain you want to increase the safety and effectiveness of your team (cockpit, cabin and external team members). You want to mould them into a coherent team by using personal, inclusive statements – get them personally involved; make “your” flight into “their” flight.

An easy way to do this is to include lots of “first person plural” words – We, Us, Our and Let’s.

This Golden Rule is illustrated in part by the following extract from the GIHRE Report:

The NTSB (1994) found that 73% of commercial aviation accidents occur on the first day of a crew pairing (relative to the base rates of 7–30% of flights that are an initial crew pairing) and that 44% of accidents occur on the first flight of a crew pairing (base rates 3–10%).

These results have been interpreted as an indication of crewmember familiarity with one another, such that the more crewmembers fly together, the better they will be able to anticipate and respond to each others’ actions.

By using lots of first person plural words you convey your sense of “team spirit”, encourage the other members of your team to start to become familiar with each other (we’re not strangers any more – let’s help each other to do this flight) and as a result your team starts evolving into a safer and more effective outfit.

Just Say “We”, “Us”, “Our” & “Let’s”. Use first person plural language to foster team perspective and increase crew familiarity so that your team is safer and more effective.

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Links to other "Golden Rules"

Lead in a Pinch, Cede in a Cinch I Delegate So You Can Regulate

Earning Respect

Earning respect is simple – but not easy.

You have to earn respect – it is never given away or automatically conferred with authority.

Respect is earned by personal example.
It’s a simple as that. But to project and display high personal example is far from easy.

Your team is a reflection of your personal image and you as the Captain and Leader of your team get to mould your team. Learn how to do this – it is an important Command skill. Watch how your current or recall how your previous Captains have accomplished this. Learn from them.

Maintaining a high personal example is not easy. You will have to continually work at it, catch yourself when you start to slacken off and raise yourself back up to your high predetermined, personal standard.

Resolve to;

• Always strive for and project this high personal standard (nobody else will make you).


• Always expect this type of high standard from your subordinates.


• If it is not apparent in your subordinates, “guide” or counsel them, or in more extreme cases direct or order them, on what you expect from them.

You’ve probably heard of these following phrases:

• ”Talk the Talk” (but make sure you also “Walk the Walk.”)


• ”Actions speak louder than words.”


• ”Lead by example.”

You do these things with personal integrity, professional discipline and decent human humility. If you manage to achieve this high personal standard, people will follow you through the “Gates of Hell”. You have become a LEADER!

Your good reputation will precede you. The good word will spread and F/Os will want to go flying with you (and enjoy the experience).

Respect and reputations are earned – not given.

Discipline yourself and others won’t need to. (John Wooden)

A tall order? Empathically YES! But this what you should aspire to.

Workload Vs Monitoring

Workload

As the Captain and Leader you will have to master the art of workload management. You actually get to choose (to a certain extent) how hard you or your team work. You can use delegation, prioritisation, planning and preparation, use of automation or your crew to regulate how hard you have to work.

Managing your workload allows you to become much more effective at both using manipulative fine motor skills to physically fly the jet and make systems selections and more importantly, to free up mental capacity so that you can plan, make decisions, communicate your intent, direct and guide your team – you know, do those Captain things!

Monitoring

As the Captain and Leader you will also have to master the art (or science?) of monitoring. Monitoring is now a primary flying skill, especially now in this age of glass cockpits and FMS driven aircraft.

In addition to monitoring what is happening with the aircraft systems; their state and health (Plane), and where the aircraft is going in the three dimensional world that we work in; by observing the attitude, airspeed, altitude, configuration and navigation (Path), you now have to focus your attention much more on what your F/O, Cabin Crew and the members of your “external extended team” are doing (People).

Workload Vs Monitoring


In an ideal world you want your monitoring to be good at every level of workload – both during low workload and high workload.


But as you’ve probably already experienced this is not how it works in real life!


As your workload increases your monitoring effectiveness decreases. If you are a maths geek you could write it as this formula:


1 ⁄ Monitoring α Workload

Or another way of saying it would be that your Monitoring is inversely proportional to your Workload. As your workload increases, your monitoring decreases.

And this is where it gets screwy. This is the exact opposite of what you really want to happen.

In an ideal world as your workload increases you want your monitoring to increase to cope with the extra demands placed upon you and your crew in the high workload environment. But as you know as your workload increases (unusual, complex, ambiguous, abnormal, emergency, unplanned change, surprise) your monitoring can plummet (if you let it).

The relationship is not linear either. It is more like an exponential relationship. A relatively small change in complexity can lead to a large increase in workload and a subsequent large decrease in monitoring. And the more things stack up against you and your team, the more your teams’ workload increases and the more your teams’ monitoring decreases. Ideally you want to keep your workload to the left of the graph (low level workload) so that you have excess monitoring capacity (high level monitoring).

Using the graph analogy further; the difference between your workload curve and your monitoring curve (to the left of the crossover point) could be said to be your "excess capacity". The lower your workload, the greater the difference between the two curves and the greater the excess capacity and greater the monitoring capability. You definitely don't want to go pass the point where the two curves crossover - you're now overloaded, have no excess capacity (in fact you are in a "capacity deficit" and this is when you load-shed tasks and make errors and miss things) and your monitoring becomes almost non existant. You are now a passenger and NOT a pilot!

What To Do About It

First of all, recognise that this is what happens for real. Be aware that by allowing your workload to increase to “high” levels you end up with monitoring at “low” levels and potentially will eventually compromise safety. Don’t rush to the scene of the accident!

Next, train yourself to recognise the “Red Flags” that your, or your teams’, workload is increasing. You cannot react, if you don’t recognise. If you don’t recognise that things are going off the rails you cannot react and alter the situation to a desirable outcome. This might be triggers such as missing radio calls or standard callouts, a breakdown of SA, making a series of minor mistakes, being unsure of what is happening and what will happen next, having to rush things to get them done in time or having a gut feeling that something is not right. Work on identifying your own individual workload “Red Flags”. Practise this as an F/O in the lead-up to your Command Course.

Now that you’ve recognised that the increased workload may, or is actually, affecting your monitoring you need to put your workload management strategies into effect (you have got some haven’t you?). It might be as simple as using the Autopilot, handing over control to your F/O (but don’t forget you still have to monitor him), requesting an orbit, holding, extra track miles (buy extra time), putting into place a pre-planned strategy that has been discussed while you were in a low workload environment, focussing on the highest priority requirement and deferring the lower priority tasks, communicating to your team your assessment of the situation and what you require from them.

It will all happen in a rush, when you are under pressure and stress. You need to think out your workload management strategies well before you have to use them, and practise them as an F/O as you will not have too much spare time to think about what you’re going to do when it actually happens.

An Example

You’re flying into Hong Kong for an ILS on runway 25R. Lots of high terrain surrounds the airfield and there is a dirty great 3,300 foot hill just to the right of the LOC at almost your altitude when descending on the G/S. It is busy and ATC is giving everybody quick fire radar vectors and speed control to get the traffic spaced for optimal runway capacity.

Approaching the LOC, ATC cuts you in early and you lose some track miles. You need to use speedbrake and start configuring right now. There are numerous ATC radio exchanges with new altitude and speed requirements, you’re observing the other traffic on TCAS and there are numerous standard calls as you and your F/O start to extend flap.

While all this is simultaneously occurring your workload is increasing. It is so easy to allow your monitoring to decrease by neglecting to monitor the LOC and G/S capture. You want to get this right as there is that big hill just waiting for you to go through the LOC and head on down the G/S.

In this case you might assess that the highest priority task is ensure that you capture the LOC and only then will you follow the G/S. This isn’t rocket science – this is basic survival!

You should have communicated this requirement as part of your arrival brief. Now your F/O is made aware of the danger and your particular requirements and highest task priority. You both should be devoting a fair bit of time monitoring the radar vectors to the LOC and the raw data to ensure that you, your F/O or the A/P actually gets it right.

Decrease your workload by anticipating this high workload, high threat situation and briefing a strategy to mitigate it, slowing a little earlier, taking flap a little earlier, deferring non essential tasks until you get to lower workload time – manage your workload to a “low” level so that your monitoring remains at a “high” level.

You do get to manage some aspects of your workload and as the Captain, workload management needs to be very highly refined and developed. By managing your level of workload to the “low” level, you can manage your monitoring to the “high” level – which is what we want.